


Calm, Calm: Belong

by gloss



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragon worldbuilding, Family, Gen, Rebuilding, Stoick the Vast Lives, Witches, canon ships, cheerfully canon-typical anachronisms, fylgjur, post-httyd 2, uwu soft vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27919567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: After Bludvist's defeat and Hiccup's assumption of the role of chief, there's so much rebuilding and relearning and readjusting to be done.Set after the second movie.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Calm, Calm: Belong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serie11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/gifts).



> Thanks to A & K for help and reassurance.
> 
> Title and epigraph from "[Belong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvR-_QBMisA)", REM.

> _Those creatures jumped the barricades  
>  And have headed for the sea  
>  She began to breathe  
>  To breathe at the thought of such freedom  
>  Stood and whispered to her child, belong  
>  She held the child and whispered  
>  With calm, calm; belong_

"So it's sort of a, a — it's called a retreat," Hiccup said when he told his family the news after the evening meal. He said _retreat_ in a different, lower tone, as if he were quoting a Baltic trader or one o those squirrelly Franks who sometimes passed through.

They were gathered around the table, the benches pushed out to make room for full bellies and sore feet. This was their usual arrangement — Stoick and Valka, Astrid and Hiccup and Toothless, and of course Gobber — breaking bread and sharing the day's events with each other. None of them was ever going to get over just how much their family had enlarged and improved.

"A retreat from what?" Valka asked.

Hiccup pressed on. "For young chiefs. New to the job. We go into the wilderness —"

"Everything is already wilderness," Gobber broke in and Astrid nodded in agreement. "What's there to go into?"

"— into the wilderness, and get to know each other, learn leadership skills, practice —. _What_ , Dad? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Stoick leaned back, eyes wide. "Looking like what?"

"Never mind," Hiccup replied. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So I'm going to be gone for a little while, doing that, picking up some more leadership skills, refining and sharing what I already know. You know. Synergistically."

"Syner-who-what?" Gobber asked.

Stoick nodded and stroked his beard. "Of course. Sinner gastrically, yes."

Valka chuckled. "I think it's a wonderful opportunity."

"Thanks, Mom!" Hiccup fidgeted a little and scratched at his neck. "So. That's my news."

"I just think —" Stoick started to say.

As one, they all groaned.

"I'm not interfering," Stoick started to say. Gobber was laughing at him already, while Hiccup's shoulders were rising and his frown was deepening. Beside Hiccup, Valka looked curious, slightly bemused (and, he had to say, entirely beautiful). "I'm not, Gob, shut yer gob."

"You are the interference!" Gobber spluttered.

Hiccup swallowed and tried, visibly, to relax. "Dad, I think I know what I'm doing —"

"Of course you do! I'd never say otherwise! I'd never even think otherwise, you must know that, I'm your number one supporter."

"I know, Dad," Hiccup said while at the same time Gobber kept belly-laughing and Valka slipped her hand into Stoick's and squeezed. "I do know that."

"Everyone giving me a hard time," Stoick grumbled, looking down. When Toothless made a soft, rumbly _coo_ of comfort, Stoick patted his flat, smooth head. "Only this guy understands."

Toothless butted at Stoick's side, nudging him over so he could stretch out a little closer to the hearth. Eyes closing in bliss, Toothless let out a burbling rumble. When Stoick stopped patting him, he lifted his head and eyed Stoick.

"Sorry, sorry," Stoick told him and resumed the pat. It was much easier to appease a sleepy dragon than any of his human loved ones.

The conversation had already moved on without him. Hiccup was explaining to Valka some details about the dragon riders' tack requirements while Gobber and Astrid had resumed their usual, ongoing argument over best practices in honing blades.

"See here, it's not just a matter of slashing, now is it? No, it is not. What you want is —" Gobber drew himself up, throwing out his chest, as he got into the flow of lecturing and hectoring.

Stoick lifted himself off the bench, dropped a kiss on the crown of Valka's skull, and made for the door. Outside, he blinked against the cold and shrugged his fur more securely around him.

Stoick couldn't remember life ever being this full of talk and company. Surely it had been? It must have been. Yet all the noise and tumult he did remember had to do with dragon raids and sea battles, not family dinners and get-togethers. Then, he was fighting for his, and everyone else's, life; now, as Valka liked to remind him, he was supposed to enjoy that life.

And he did enjoy it, very much. His cheeks hurt from smiling all the time; his belly often cramped from laughter. He breathed far easier these days, walked more slowly, _savored_ the sharp wind and cold nights, foggy mornings and bright, chill afternoons.

Getting knocked right through death's veil and bouncing back out again was the best thing that ever happened to him. Better even than his wedding day and Hiccup's birth, because he'd returned, ready to savor those joys anew.

Something snuffled and sighed in the bracken behind him. Stoick lowered himself onto a rocky outcropping and said, "Too cold out here for you, Toothless."

The dragon ignored him. Toothless was as stubborn as any Viking Stoick had ever known, including himself. He waddled up and leaned against Stoick's leg, using Stoick's boot as a pillow.

Years ago now, when the dragons had first come to Berk and Hiccup was still deep in his sickness-sleep, Stoick and Toothless developed this routine. Stoick hiked, walked, paced off his worries while Toothless accompanied him. Some nights, however, they just sat.

They did that now, perched so high above the sea that it looked like a lady's bed fur, pale gray and wrinkled. Every so often Toothless exhaled and whistled. Stoick stroked one of Toothless's lobed fins as the stars prickled out, bright and sharp, over them.

He wasn't accustomed to the quiet any better than he was to affectionate company and chatter. He had time, however, for both.

*

Hiccup left after the midday feast. Gobber would be accompanying part of the way, as he was due to visit his cousin Beaky and his family. The entire tribe turned out to see him and Gobber off. Of course, it was also a splendid autumn day, strikingly warm and bright, and no one was in any hurry to get back to chores and work.

From his perch atop Toothless, Hiccup made some parting remarks, thanking everyone and joking about returning with yet more herds of dragons.

"While I'm gone," he said as he was wrapping up, "I'm going to leave one person in charge, just in case there are any problems, go find —"

Stoick's chest swelled as he took a breath and readied himself to speak.

"Astrid," Hiccup concluded and pointed at her. "You can't miss her, she's the fine-looking maiden with the killer right hook who snorts when she eats and laughs like a baby seal."

Astrid blew him a kiss and he pretended to fall over himself trying to catch it.

*

Valka still startled when she was touched without warning by anyone other than her family. She preferred to eat her fish raw — which, despite what Gobber liked to claim, was _not_ how she'd always served it — and to sleep on a thin layer of moss and lichen. Most nights, that was beside Stoick's enormous snoring bulk, but sometimes, it was curled up against Cloudjumper's even larger form.

"Your other husband," Stoick liked to tease her.

"It's symmetrical," she'd shoot back. "You have Gobber, after all."

Stoick got that slightly abashed expression when she'd say things like that. That seemed silly to her. In the wake of her departure, they'd both done what they had to do in order to keep going.

"I'm sorry," she said this morning when he looked at her like that, big eyes half-lidded and mouth twisted up like a beaten child. "I'm just teasing you."

"Don't be," he replied. When she cocked her head, confused, he added, "Sorry. You need to stop saying that."

"Do I?" She hadn't realized.

"It begins everything you say, or nearly so," Stoick said. As he started listing examples, his voice grew louder, his words coming faster. "Sorry but here's dinner. Sorry I have to visit Gothi. Sorry Hiccup said he'd be late. Valka!"

He shouted the last part, made her name shake the timbers.

"Yes?"

Stoick grabbed both her hands in his and nearly crushed them. "You have nothing to apologize for!"

"Oh, I don't know about that —" she began but he shook his head fiercely, so fast that his beard whipped through the air.

"Stop it," he implored. One braid in his beard hit his open mouth and he spit it out. "Sorry."

"Now you're doing it," she said and brought his hands up to kiss the battered, swollen knuckles.

"You have an effect on me," he said hoarsely, and suddenly they weren't talking about the past any longer.

"You don't say," Valka said lightly, turning in his arm like a dance so she was leaning back against him, head on his chest. 

" _Woman_ ," he said, his breath warm on her cheek, lifting the loose hair from her braids.

Some things, she'd discovered on her return, had not changed whatsoever. Their passion for each other was one of those things, so although Stoick was now capable of much more gentleness and patience than in the past, her desire for him was no less fervent, even at times overwhelming.

*

Stoick continued swimming well after most of the rest of the tribe gave it up for autumn.

"You call yourselves Vikings?" he yelled at the two women across the beach who were laughing at him. "When I was a boy, the women beat us in every sea race going!"

"And now we have some sense," one of them shouted back while her friend hung off her, laughing heartily.

Stoick beat his fists against his chest, did a few deep knee-bends, then ran for the water. Best to get right into it — he usually dove from one of the rocks but today he was eager to get away from the small, jeering audience.

The sea slapped him with its enormous frigid hand, then dragged him deep. As he swam against the current, his limbs flashed in and out of sensation. From frozen to tingling, and back again, white to red, all the pain of the cold surged through him and drove him forward.

He circled the island once. By the time his heap of clothing was again visible, he was ready to emerge. He was already daydreaming about the breakfast waiting for him and the heat of the hearth. The sweet curve of Valka's neck, how it smelled like new honey along her hairline. How she giggled like a girl when he kissed her there.

The two women on the beach had been joined by three more friends. They were all picking their way slowly down the pebble-strewn sand, heads bent, hunting whelk and periwinkles. 

Stoick was no coward. He was, however, wary of the mocking gaze of others. One might have called it not chary so much as _shy_ , but he would have protested that, if anything, he was being sensible. He pictured himself emerging from the waves, skin riddled with gooseflesh and mottled pink and white. His toes curled at the very thought. He would rather avoid such an encounter if at all possible.

So he reversed direction, turning onto his back to find the current, then going back prone and kicking into the flow. He'd been breathing hard the whole time, but he relaxed now and let the waves do most of the work.

The sky shone a brilliant, polished blue over him, while the waves splashed foam and salt in his wake. The women on the beach shrank, then fell out of sight as he rounded a spit of boulders. The wind slackened a bit here, so he heard the cries of the birds, even a few shrieks from the dragon stables on the other side of the island.

Stoick stopped swimming and floated on his back, arms folded over his belly. The air was cold, but had a different quality from that of the sea. He sang a little, half-remembered sailing chants and a few obscene drinking songs, slowing the tempo to match the gentle rocking of his body in the water.

He could stay out here all day. He wouldn't, because he'd probably freeze off several toes, but the important thing was that he _could have_. Valka would like to have him around, of course, and the stables always needed some extra help, but he wasn't _expected_ anywhere. No one was depending on his presence.

That was odd, to put it mildly. Pleasant, of course, after all the stress and constant worry of being chief, but odd all the same.

He was getting colder the longer he floated like a happy, useless seal out here. Stoick turned over, ready to swim on back home, when something flickered out of the corner of his eye. For a moment, he had an impression of something huge and frozen — an iceberg the size of Berk itself. His nerves twanged as his breath caught in his throat.

Stoick went still. The deeply-ingrained habits of years of raiding and hunting were not easily shed. He dropped in the water, then turned slowly, gaze tracking the horizon.

There was nothing there. Nothing but the endless shifting edge of the sea spilling over the far horizon. Where the water met the sky, radiance dwelled.

Stoick kicked into a shallow dive and started back the way he'd come.

*

After a little more than hour of flying, they ran into a terrific storm over the Hapless Isles. Hiccup waved madly to get Gobber and Grump's attention, then brought Toothless down in the middle of a grassy field gone golden in the dipping sun. They dried off as best they could and set off on foot, the dragons meandering behind them.

"Just to get out of the storm's path," Hiccup told Gobber.

Gobber shrugged expansively. "Hike or fly, all the same to me."

He was remarkably chipper for a Viking, Hiccup thought; he always had been, and that had been a welcome change from Stoick's tendency to yell, then stomp away.

"So, Gobber..." Hiccup started when they'd made some progress. "How are things?"

How was he supposed to talk to people now? People he'd grown up under, people who'd always towered over him. He was expected to be friendly with everyone, but also chief-like, whatever _that_ meant.

Figuring out chief-hood was proving to be many, many times more difficult than befriending Toothless ever had been. Take that ordeal, add in the troubles he had convincing Stoick to reconsider dragons, and double them several times over, and you might have an approximation of how hard this puzzle was proving to be.

"Things?" Gobber said, plucking a stalk of grass as they moved and sticking it into his mouth to chew. "Things are grand! You know that. You've seen it." He spit out some pieces of stalk, then added, "Daresay you're responsible for a lot of it, lad."

Well, that was quite kind, and Hiccup had no idea how to respond to that. Instead, he pressed the original question.

"But with you, I mean," Hiccup said. "How are _you_? How's Gobber doing? How are...concerns unique to Gobber?"

Slowing his stride, Gobber eyed him curiously, sidewise, then shrugged and stumped onward. "Gobber and Gobber's concerns are grand, Hiccup. Why? You heard something? Something you're keeping from me?"

Startled, Hiccup threw up his hands and shook his head vigorously. "No! Nothing like that! Why would you...? Never mind. No, nothing's wrong."

"Good, then," Gobber said, satisfied. 

"Just checking in, you see." Hiccup tried to explain, but intention and affection got tangled up in the face of his father's constant advice — _chiefly is as chiefly does_ , whatever in Freyja's green valley _that_ meant — and he stammered a bit, then gave up. 

"Appreciate the concern," Gobber told him. "I do, thank you kindly."

"Well, you're welcome, Gobber." His embarrassed flush was starting to fade, finally. "Just know, anything ever does go wrong, I'll be there, you know?"

"Wind beneath my wings and such, sure, of course," Gobber mumbled, failing to hide an abashed smile behind his big hand. He turned a bit and looked up at the sky. "Think we ought to keep on a bit more?"

Hiccup got astride Toothless and rose to just over five times Gobber's height. He considered the darkness and texture of the clouds, the wind's direction, and only then noticed the flicker of light further to the south.

"Looks like a small village or a camp," he said as Toothless landed. "Probably a camp. I don't remember any village around here."

"Camp or village, they'll have grub," Gobber noted and patted his stomach. "Beverages, too."

"Let's make for there. Hide the dragons in the grasses and see what there is to see."

Gobber spit out the last soft bit of the grass stalk he'd chewed down and smacked Hiccup on the back. "I'd race you, but we've got the two good legs between us."

"And they're far from the same size," Hiccup finished for him.

Laughing, they made their way through the grass. When Gobber and Hiccup approached what proved to be a very small caravan camp, Grump and Toothless stayed behind in a wide hollow, with strict orders not to cause trouble or take to the air.

The Tubthumpers were a small, but highly rowdy group — of course they were, they were Vikings. They were on their way home from a successful excursion across one of the fingers of the Bitter Sea and insisted that Hiccup and Gobber join their celebration.

It sounded — and smelled — like they'd been celebrating for weeks already. Before Hiccup could manage to stammer out an excuse, Gobber was already draining his first horn and pounding it on his knee, demanding another.

Scrubbing his hands through his hair and sighing, Hiccup joined the party. He didn't drink very much, since both mead and ale did funny things to his digestion, but enough that he soon grew fuzzy-headed and flushed. Even at the start when stone sober, he had trouble following the rollicking, illogical flow of conversation and argument. This difficulty just became all the more snarled and confusing as the evening passed. The crowd was little more than a smear of red faces and big beards, pounding horns and howls of laughter. Around them, the dark hovered, kept at bay solely by a fire and its hovering, hopeful sparks.

"Tell 'em, Hiccup!" Gobber grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him so hard Hiccup's teeth might have rattled. "You all listen here, this is the one you need to heed! _Tell 'em, Hiccup._ "

"What?" Hiccup begged. "What am I telling them?"

The Tubthumper with blue cords woven in his silver beard threw back his head and laughed. "Boy! Gobshite over there —"

"Gobber," Gobber shouted.

"— is trying to tell us that you, your whole stinking tribe, don't go raiding and pillaging any more."

The rest of them broke into laughter anew, shaking their heads and crowing to each other.

"We don't need to, y'see," Gobber put in. 

"So you're all ship-less and forlorn like wee lost lambs, then?"

Gobber sank down to a crouch beside Hiccup and threw his arm around Hiccup's waist. "Tell 'em. Go on."

"We don't need to," Hiccup said.

"We don't need to," Gobber repeated, much more loudly, as if to reach distant listeners. 

"I got this, Gobber, thanks." Hiccup cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter. He addressed himself across the fire to the loudest one, blue-plaited silver-beard. "See, sir, it's not that we _can't_. We just don't. I mean, raiding and pillaging? _Really?_ In this day and age?"

"Viking Age, though," Silver-Beard replied. "Right there in the name and all."

"I just think it's all a little...obvious?" Hiccup continued. "The whole raid and pillage bit. Where's the nuance? Where's the subtlety?"

"Careful now," Gobber muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't be overdoing it."

Gulping and nodding, Hiccup waved his hand. "We don't want to, that's all. Don't need to, not now that we've found something that suits us better."

"Better?!" Silver-Beard roared as all his men joined him in uproarious disbelief. "Tell me, young'un. What in all of icy inhospitable Midgard could be better than a morning spent raiding, pillaging, even a spot of kidnapping and some large-scale arson, hmm?"

"Dragons!" Gobber answered before Hiccup could reply. "Dragons! Better than anything."

Silver-Beard squinted against the glare of the fire. The man to his right, much younger but with the same long face and close-set eyes, started to speak but Silver-Beard shoved him back to hush.

"Dragons," he said flatly. "You don't say."

Hiccup threw up his hands and laughed, but it came out high-pitched and squeaky and definitely slightly panicked. "Dragons! They're a scourge, that's for sure, we can't keep —"

"Heard tell of some fools out there, thinking they could raise dragons and keep 'em safe and be skipping through the gorse and across the bracken with them. Sound familiar?"

"Why —" Gobber started but Hiccup drove his metal foot into Gobber's good one.

"Ridiculous!" Hiccup said, then again. "Why, the notions people get into their heads, it'd be impressive, wouldn't it, just downright impress you and then some!"

"Yeah," Silver-Beard said slowly. "Impressive."

Hiccup pulled himself up and raised his horn. "I'd like to propose a toast. To the fools and dreamers out there! May they not get their heads burned off and their islands razed to dust!" He looked slowly around the circle. "Who's with me? To the weirdos! Takes all kinds, doesn't it?"

"Weirdos!" the younger Not-Yet-Silver-Beard echoed. "And freaks."

"Freaks and dreamers, that's it! Skal to them!" Nodding too quickly, getting a little off-balance as he did, Hiccup kept up the chant until everyone had joined in.

In the morning, the Tubthumpers packed up much more quickly than their hangovers might have been expected to allow. They gave Gobber a tip about cutting across a silted-up fjord to shave time off his journey to his cousin's village. That would have been valuable information had he not been flying via dragon. Moreover, they recommended that Hiccup take a more directly southerly route to his destination, as the lowlands had recently emptied of wolves. Considering how miserly with geographic details Vikings tended to be — all the better to protect the good raiding spots — both pieces of advice were enormously generous of them. 

"Ah, Hiccup, y'see?" Gobber said, hands on his hips, head thrown back to breathe in the crisp morning air. "People're good! Just give 'em a chance."

"I give people lots of chances!" Hiccup protested. "Don't I? I'm kind of notorious for that. I thought I was, anyway."

"So you do, so you do." Gobber hugged Hiccup against his side. "You think well of people but in general. You're not so comfortable with them face-to-face."

As he disentangled himself and finished dressing, Hiccup considered that observation. 

Gobber was right, he decided. Someone like his dad, like Astrid, met people individually and valued — or didn't — them accordingly. It wasn't that they weren't capable of thinking in the abstract, just that they didn't do so when it came to other people. On the other hand, Hiccup tended to have certain general assumptions and beliefs about _all_ people and what they were capable of. His mother did, too, though hers had been much darker than Hiccup's. He liked to think she was coming back around these days.

*

Before Gobber left, Stoick had promised to keep an eye on the smithy and shop. He'd forgotten this nearly as soon as the words left his mouth, but Astrid reminded him at dinner. On his way over the next afternoon, he nearly ran into Eret and Skullcrusher. Eret had the dragon on a loose lead, but was distracted by one of the maidens passing in the other direction. For his part, Stoick wasn't watching where he was going either. He was busy worrying a piece of meat with his tongue; it was stuck in one of his upper molars and stubbornly refused to budge. 

Eret bumped into Stoick, Stoick crashed into Skullcrusher, Skullcrusher grunted in annoyance, and the maidens giggled as they hurried along. Skullcrusher gave a sweet low of greeting as Stoick scritched the sweet spot at the hinge of the dragon's jaw. 

"Who's a good boy, hmm?" Stoick crooned. The words came to him automatically, as familiar as the pebbly texture of Skullcrusher's hide under his hand. "Who's the best boy?"

"Er..." Eret said. From the moment of Bludvist's defeat and Stoick's return, Eret had studiously avoided Stoick and, caught now, looked both dumbstruck and paranoid. His eyes darted; he wound the lead more securely around his hand. "Afternoon. Stoick."

"Eret. Skullcrusher." Stoick made himself move away. He gave explicit instructions to each of his feet, first one, then the other. "Be seeing you."

He missed that dragon with all his heart. But Skullcrusher had bonded with Eret — even if Stoick had been a selfish prick and demanded Skullcrusher back, their partnership never would have been the same. Tugging at his hair a lot, Hiccup had explained it to Stoick in terms of fairness and equity; Valka took a different approach and told him stories about dragon bonds and how they could change and shift.

Stoick had shrugged them both off. "He's not mine to take back, I know that. Just glad he's happy."

That was all there was to it. Didn't mean he couldn't miss the big gorgeous lug.

*

Bent double to catch her breath, Astrid held up her hand, asking for a break. Valka darted away, dancing from foot to foot, her sword flicking back and forth.

"All right, let's go," Astrid said as she stood up. She was a powerful woman, lean and terrifically strong; Valka had never had such a good human sparring partner. 

They shifted towards each other, their movement quiet on the mossy ground. The loudest thing was their breathing — deep, thunderous, controlled. Beneath her helmet, Astrid's face was a mask of furious intent.

Valka saw the unprotected stretch of Astrid's left flank. She flitted in, arm and sword acting as one, and knocked the flat of the blade against the heavy leather.

Astrid stumbled but stayed upright. Her mouth opened, but Valka no longer heard anything beyond the beat of her own blood and rush of wind in her lungs. She twisted out of reach, dashed to the side, then sprang up the slight rise to rain blows on Astrid's arms and shoulders.

Astrid, however, thrust through the volley and swept her blade low. She made Valka jump out of the way — and Valka lost her balance. She fell forward, stopping herself with her free hand before she somersaulted.

"Well done!" she cried.

Beaming, Astrid removed her helmet and mopped the sweat from her face. Happy like this, she resembled the girl she had so recently been; there was little of the fierce woman.

"Let's eat," Astrid said. "I don't know about you, but I could eat a Gronckle."

Valka made a face. "They're terribly sour, you know. Like mead that's gone off."

Astrid started to react, but composed herself. "Good to know," she replied, grinning. "No Gronckles at the next feast, then."

For as great a fighter as Astrid was, Valka was discovering that she was also quite gentle, both thoughtful and kind. She noticed things — like Valka freezing when someone got too close, or the strange things Valka said without thinking them through — and took them in, but she didn't point them out. She didn't make Valka stop and look at whatever odd thing she'd said or done that made other people uncomfortable.

Valka unwrapped the cold meat and bread they'd brought while Astrid poured some weak ale. As they ate in companionable silence, the sun emerged from the clouds and the air in the grove warmed around them. Astrid loosened her breastplate, then reclined on one elbow, her face turned to the light.

Valka tidied the remains of their meal, then rinsed her hands in the brook that cut through the forest. When she returned, Astrid was already dozing, her head pillowed on her arm. The sunlight picked out the light down of hair along the rise of Astrid's cheek; shadows of leaves played down the length of her arm and in the slight smile she wore.

Settling down beside Astrid, Valka opened her sack to retrieve her carving tools. The sun, the quiet, the good company: everything made this a good time to work on the new hilt she was carving.

It was formed from a piece of Bludvist's Bewilderbeast's broken tusk. The tribe had argued for a long time, several nights in fact, about what to do with the detritus of battle. They couldn't let it go to waste, of course, but few offered any positive ideas.

When Valka was a girl, before she left Berk, the tribe had several different recipes for dragon carcasses. Everything from salted meat for the winter to armor made of the shed scales. They lost so much to the dragons, the logic seemed to run, the least they could do was get something back.

Things were so different now. The Hooligans were reluctant to consume dragon meat; Valka was given to understand that such an act would be nearly tantamount to cannibalism. Scales and horn continued to be useful, however.

The hesitation, then, about breaking up the Bewilderbeast's horn and putting it to use, confused Valka. No one in Berk had any emotional attachment to the beast, nothing that would stand in the way.

"They just don't know what to do, Mom," Hiccup had tried to explain to her when she expressed frustration. "It was so..." His hands moved, and his shoulders, too. "Grand? Grand and beautiful and terrifying. Splendid. It'd be like trying to find a use for, for —" His shoulders tipped and tilted as he spluttered a little. "For Thor's hair, or Odin's eye!"

"That's silly," she'd said. "It's just a horn, Hiccup."

"It belonged to something important," he replied. "We're all coming to terms with that, I think. Maybe." He bit his lip and glanced away. "What do I know, I mean, I'm —"

She saw in that darted gaze, that twist to his waist to make himself smaller, something of herself, of dragons under threat. She desperately wanted to _fix_ it. She had no idea how.

"Hiccup," she said and pinched his chin to make him meet her eyes. "Trust yourself. You know what you know. That has to be enough."

Slowly, he nodded, and his eyes glistened. With the pad of her thumb, she stroked the scar on his chin.

Now, with Astrid asleep beside her, Valka turned the chunk of tusk in her hands. The specific shape of the hilt had yet to suggest itself; all she had accomplished so far was chipping along the vertical crack. She worked more quickly now, lengthening and smoothing the chipped planes and finding a rough shape. It was triangular, with one corner elongated, as if melting. 

She gripped the piece between her feet to keep it still, then switched knives. She chose one meant for much finer work and first had to shake out the cramp in her hand from the heavier tool. The melted corner of the triangle resolved into the general shape of a person's folded arm. The curve of a cheek developed next, then a faint smile.

By the time Astrid stirred to waking, Valka had found her subject. This was no longer a sword hilt, but something else — the form and content of Astrid's sleep, the drift of her dreams past her closed eyes, the trust it took for her to relax and slumber. 

The piece would not be useful in the least, so far as Valka knew, yet it needed to be made nonetheless. Perhaps, like a song, its usefulness was intangible. It was pleasing and that was its purpose.

*

"Are you sure?" Valka asked Stoick one morning when he kissed her cheek and told her he was off for a quick swim. "It's snowing."

"Never stopped me before," he said stoutly, but he did pause on the threshold to the house. There wasn't much snow in the air, just a few frantic flakes, nor was it sticking to the ground. They still had a good few weeks before the first serious snow of the season. Then again, he could stay home, help with breakfast, eat and be warm. 

"Oh, go on," she said, pushing him out playfully. "Get cold and salty!" She caught his hand then, tugged him back to kiss his cheek and whispered, "Then come home to me."

Stoick grinned benevolently at everything in sight.

Fog wreathed most of the village that morning as he made his way down to the beach. The scattered flakes disappeared on their passage through the fog, so his boots merely squelched in mud.

On the beach, he stripped, clapped his hands three times, and ran into the sea hollering his head off. Some gulls and a few late-season ducks took off, wings panickedly beating the air, in surprise.

For several moments, enveloped by the frigid water, he could neither see nor feel. He was simply, perfectly, _cold_ and everything was stark, rushing white. Gradually his senses returned, and he found the sky, then felt his fingers and arms moving. Next he heard himself breathing and the racket of waves hitting the shore.

As his vision finished resolving, he was rounding the north crag and looking forward to the gentler waves. The snow fell a bit faster now, in great fluffy flakes that floated for half a moment on the water before melting. Stoick picked up the pace and made for the far curve of this stretch.

He saw it again. No, he didn't see. He felt, or suspected, or perceived it. Whatever _it_ was, it rose — it _loomed_ — just outside his vision. He slowed, blinking, then stilled.

This time, he could make out a flicker of motion, a disturbance across the surface of the waves. As soon as he blinked, it was gone, just as fast as the snowflakes.

*

Having spent a very comfortable, entirely delightful visit with his cousin Beaky, Gobber took his sweet time going back to Berk. He stopped at a few different villages, drank nearly his weight in first-of-season mead, and traded ambergris for lovely carved earrings and a nice new sword buckle.

He and Grump picked up speed when the snow started to fly. Gobber didn't like the way it caught in his beard and spattered his head, while Grump became so easily distracted by chasing individual flakes, mouth open and tongue lolling, that they swooped and looped through the air until Gobber felt he'd lose every lunch he had ever consumed.

"Could make you walk, what do you think of that?" he asked Grump, slapping the side of his neck and giving it an affectionate shake. "You great big beautiful lump, if we did that, we wouldn't see home til spring!"

Grump burbled a happy reply and beat his wings a little faster. They were flying low, just over the brush-sharp tips of a pine forest. Grump was tilted earthwards with Gobber bent over him, trying his best to avoid the snow.

If they hadn't been so low, he never would have heard the wailing. It rose like an arrow, it tore the air to tatters around it.

In all his years, Gobber had never heard the like, not from a human mouth, a dragon maw, or anything else. And as a boy, he'd seen the mating battles of walruses and elk. Not together, however. That would have been a cacophony as well as mindbreakingly obscene.

The wail cut off, leaving in its wake a silence nearly as sharp as the sound itself had been.

Grump reared and swung his massive head around. He gave a low, fearful rumble. Gobber patted him reassuringly. "You can breathe fire, my friend," he whispered. "You'd come out on top every day."

Grump snorted softly as if he doubted that, but appreciated the sentiment. 

Gobber eased the dragon down into a clearing. The snow fell more gently here, its rush caught and its volume thinned by the intervening branches.

"Hello?" Gobber called, sliding off Grump. He stuck close to the wary dragon, circling it, calling a few times but getting no response. When he'd made it back to Grump's big sniffling snout, a woman was standing between two trees, just a few paces away.

She was as still as the trees themselves, wrapped in a black cloak, its hood, lined with soft white fur, tugged up over her head. She held a distaff, one of the most common objects going, but this one was brass and polished wood, inlaid with drops of amber and bright stones.

"Ma'am," Gobber said, swallowed a few times, then couldn't think of anything more to say. Should he kneel?

That thought arrived in his mind, then vanished, as quickly as a bird. Why would he kneel to a strange woman in the middle of the forest? 

"You may call me Oddrún," she said and suddenly she was right in front of him, a mere whisker's breadth away. He had not seen her move.

"Gobber." He poked the dragon. "Grump."

Her eyes were colorless, her expression grave. "Are you well? You babble nonsense."

"Gobber," he said again and thumped his chest. The braids of his beard bounced. "Is my name. This here's Grump."

"Dragon," she said, and she sounded _satisfied_. 

"That's right," Gobber said. "Best Hotburple you'll ever meet, bar none."

She nodded, then held her hand out. He didn't understand at first, but then he realized she was expecting him to lift her atop Grump. 

"Hang on, just a —" He hauled himself up into the saddle first, then leaned over to pull her up. She was nearly weightless, like lifting a moonbeam, as he got her settled before him. "Comfy? Afraid there's no awning, nothing to keep the snow off, but —"

"This is adequate," she replied in that same calm, deep voice. "Thank you."

"Pleasure's all mine!" He heard, too late, just how loudly he was speaking and flushed. She did not seem bothered, however. He'd never been all that at ease with lady-kind; when they were around, he tripped over his feet, or stump, even more than usual, and spoke too loudly and made much less sense. Gobber cleared his throat. "Pleasure's all mine."

"To Berk, then," she announced.

He tugged on Grump's ear-fin and slowly, haltingly, they rose back into the air. They had cleared the treetops and turned toward home and the snow was streaming past when it occurred to Gobber to wonder how she knew his destination.

It was rude to question a witch, of course. Especially such a pretty one. Even he knew that.

*

Valka rose in the middle of the night and wrapped a cloak around herself. Before she could step down the ladder, however, Stoick sat up and cleared his throat.

"Wife," he said.

"Stoick."

"I wish you'd stay."

She didn't have any response to that. She flushed, toe to cheek, and wondered if she was actually trembling, or if that was simply surprise.

"Stoick."

"I can't keep you, I know that," he said and looked down at his open palms. "And I won't."

She returned to the bed and sat down, taking one of his hands. "I am not leaving to get away from you."

He took his time meeting her eyes. When he did, they were bright in the darkness. "No."

"No," she assured him. "Not at all."

He tipped forward, this mountain of a man, until his forehead rested against the sharp knob of her shoulder. Whatever he said next was lost between his sigh and the rough weave of her cloak.

"Stoick," Valka murmured, slipping her arm around him as far as it would go (not very) and squeezing his enormous paw of a hand. 

He snuffled wetly. He might have said _stay_ or something else entirely.

"I always come back," she reminded him gently. "Don't I?"

He shook his head; she stroked his hair back, tucking it behind one ear.

"Valka," he said finally, sniffing once more, then lifting his head. "I like having you here. I like knowing —"

"You always know where I am —"

He opened his mouth but no words came out. In the shadows, she saw the wet patch of mouth among the drier, tangled textures of his beard.

"Ah," she concluded, and slumped against him, "but you didn't always know, did you?"

He tightened his arm around her. Valka drew herself as close to his warmth as she could.

Dragons were far, far easier to understand and communicate with. _That_ much, she was certain of.

*

The woman who'd accompanied Gobber back to Berk paused as Astrid and Valka passed. They were on their way to the dragon stables.

Astrid greeted her, but Oddrún ignored her. Instead, she pointed at Valka and said, quite plainly, "Dragon."

"Witch," Valka responded.

Oddrún frowned. "Beast."

"Hey!" Astrid said, but Valka held out her arm, blocking her from getting any closer to the witch. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dragon," Oddrún said impatiently. "Worm. Beast. It is clear."

"Take it back!" Astrid shouted as Valka led her away. "Hey, I said —"

Silently, Oddrún watched them go. Valka felt her gaze all the way up the hill and into the foreyard of the dragon eyrie. 

"You can't let her talk to you like that," Astrid said, much more calmly now, but with a hard set to her jaw. "It's disrespectful."

"It's true," Valka replied as she took down a small child's saddle and handed it to Astrid. "A seer sees, after all."

"She's not a seer," Astrid objected and kicked at a clod of fewmets. "Who cleans this place, anyway, it's disgusting —"

Valka let her fume and stomp around to let off the anger. Meanwhile, she opened the stall of a juvenile Dawn Miff and coaxed it out into the yard. The fact that the dragons were shut up in stalls still pained her. Maybe one day the residents of Berk would truly understand dragons' wild, benevolent freedom and stop treating them as much-larger, faster sheep and cattle.

Although Valka found all dragons beautiful in their own way, this one really was quite pretty — shaped a bit like a Night Fury, but leaner, its skin had the nacreous, shifting lavender glow of the interior of some sea shells and its eyes were wide and depthless sky-blue. It had lost its mother and hatchmates earlier that year and still moved warily, as if expecting the worst at every moment. 

Valka and Astrid set about running the little dragon through the morning's training. It was still learning to tolerate the saddle, which was the lightest Hiccup and Gobbler had been able to craft, and it slobbered more than anything.

Halfway through the morning, Astrid's cousin Rannow dropped off her littler cousin Salty. When his mother contracted eel pox during her pregnancy, he'd been born blind. No one knew quite what to do with him, but Astrid insisted that a dragon could be his helpmeet.

The Dawn Miff was more scared of the toddler than Salty was of it. He clapped enthusiastically and asked for _up, up!_ as soon as he arrived. It was the dragon who needed some time to adjust.

Valka crouched next to the Miff, a hand on its flank. She let it watch as she spoke sweetly and softly to the child. 

"Nice boy, good boy," she said, the memory of singing to Hiccup in his cradle fleeting through her mind. "Do you want to pat your dragon friend?"

He nodded and, shadowed but not guided by Astrid, took a few shaky steps forward. He was a cute little boy, with a headful of shaggy red hair and a wide, ever-present smile. 

The Miff surprised them both by lowering its broad head and nudging at Salty's stomach. He rocked a little, giggling.

"It's going to go around with you," Astrid told him, her hand gently hovering in his shock of hair. "Be your eyes. How's that sound?"

When he laughed in reply, the dragon trilled with him and bumped its snout up into his hand.

"It likes you," Valka told him.

"She's gonna be my friend!" Salty announced. They weren't sure of the Miff's sex yet, but Valka was willing to accept that the child knew better than they.

Salty pressed his face against the dragon's snout; over his head, Valka and Astrid smiled at each other. There was still quite a bit to be done, but it looked like they were well on their way with this particular task.

On their way home that afternoon, Astrid brought up the witch again.

"Don't pay her any mind," Valka said. "She has her role, I have mine."

"She insulted you!"

"I've heard much worse," Valka pointed out. 

"That's not acceptable," Astrid retorted. "Who does she think she is? She can't just come here and insult people! That's awful!"

"I do not believe she means to insult me," Valka said. "She speaks the truth. That is her way."

Astrid grabbed an empty basket off the top of a stack and drop-kicked it into the underbrush. "Rude!"

Valka turned and retrieved the basket, handing it back to its bemused mistress. "We are hardly known for elegance and politesse, Astrid."

After a moment, catching her breath, Astrid laughed and had to agree. "I still don't like her."

"Nor do I. But I don't think she means us any great offense."

"Huh, maybe." Astrid looked skeptical. "Maybe not."

*

"Mother elder!" Gobber hailed old Gothi.

She sat in her yard, surrounded by squirming Terrible Terrors that she had, it seemed, given up on bathing. She waved frantically as she disappeared from view, covered by two Terrors nipping and gurgling at each other.

Gobber hurried over and pulled her free. Breathing heavily, she smiled a toothless grin of thanks.

"Mother Gothi, a favor?" he asked when they'd settled inside, a horn of ale each and a large dish of bread between them.

She gummed at the bread and nodded, indicating for him to continue.

"In the ways of..." He did not know how to continue. He wasn't concerned about love so much as _women_. One woman in particular.

"Witches?" Gothi suggested, glancing at him while letting a Terror lap at her ale.

Gobber passed his palm over his face, but he was still blushing. "Yes."

"Ignore her," Gothi said firmly, then drained her horn. "Not yours."

"But —" Surely Gobber had a chance. He'd never been the best-looking Viking, to be sure, but nor was he the equal to Smash-Face the Timid.

Gothi reached over, but her arm was too short; Gobber leaned in to close the gap and she thudded her fist against the middle of his chest. "Already full."

"...my belly?" He looked speculatively at her stove. "I could do with another nosh, actually."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Heart."

The smallest of the Terrors whined at Gothi's feet. Clucking her tongue soothingly, she slid off her stool and knelt, opening her arms to gather the little dragon into an embrace.

Watching her, Gobber felt his eyes fill with sentimental tears. He swiped the back of his hand across them and sniffled.

So lovely! She was probably right. His heart was already full. He didn't need to go courting some strange seiðr with moonlit hair and haunting eyes. What would he even do with such a creature?

It was ridiculous. He didn't want her as other men would want a wife, after all. He just found himself thinking, of an evening, how nice it might be to have some company.

But Gothi reminded him he _did_ have that company. Not one lady-wife, but a whole chattering, argumentative family.

*

Astrid called a family council after dinner. "The witch. I don't like her."

"No one does," Stoick said.

"I do!" Gobber protested. When they laughed at him, he scowled. "I do. Not just because she probably enchanted me —"

"Probably?" Valka asked.

"Definitely," Astrid said. "Most certainly."

"Yeah, yeah," Gobber said. "But I like her anyway. She's...different." He was about to explain further, but thought better of it. He didn't feel like going up against the three skeptical faces staring at him, united in disbelief and derision. "Forget it."

Astrid passed him another loaf of bread. "Different, she's certainly that."

"Thank you," he replied with as much dignity as he could muster before biting into the bread. "That's all I meant."

"But I don't trust her," Astrid continued. "She's uncanny. Secretive."

"She is that," Stoick agreed. He took the half-eaten loaf from Gobber's hand and bit off some for himself. Chewing wetly, he added, "Never liked that in a Viking. It's not right."

Valka coughed softly. "Her personality might not be pleasant, but that's no reason to turn against her."

"Not like that!" Astrid said hastily. "I don't want to turn against anyone. Not, that is, if we don't have to."

Scrupulously honest and fair: that was Astrid. Valka smiled at her and Gobber nodded in agreement as he stole back the heel of bread left by Stoick on the table.

"She doesn't bother the dragons," Stoick noted. "If she were a threat, wouldn't they..." He trailed off.

"I don't think the dragons notice her," Valka said.

Gobber spluttered with laughter. "They're canny beasts, Valka, I'm sure they do."

Valka smoothed the loose hairs off her forehead. "I'm not. Sure, that is."

"So we don't know what she's doing here," Astrid said, "and we don't know if she's trustworthy, nor do we know if, what? She's even here?"

"Oh, she's here," Valka replied. "I'm not sure she's human, that's all."

Stoick laughed, a great bark like a bull seal's that suddenly cut off. He stroked his chin and looked thoughtful. "You might have something there."

"You're all mad," Gobber announced. He didn't sound entirely certain of that pronouncement, so he repeated himself. "Mad. All of you."

"So what do we do?" Astrid, ever pragmatic and focused, asked in the silence left ringing in the wake of Gobber's strained laughter.

Stoick scuffed his toe in the cinders before the hearth. "She knows quite a bit about dragons, there's that."

"Yes," Valka agreed. "That's nothing to scoff at."

"She insults you," Astrid said sharply. "All the time!"

Startled, Stoick leaned over to Valka. "Is that true? What does she do? Shall I deal with her?"

Valka rolled her eyes and patted his knee. "She calls me 'dragon'. Which — as I've told Astrid any number of times — is simply accurate."

Stoick was having none of this reasonable attitude. His voice roared, bringing down a surprised bats and much dust from the rafters above. "Dragon? My wife? How dare she? _Dragon_ , eh?"

"You like dragons," Valka said mildly. The corners of her mouth deepened and her chin seemed to twitch, as if she were fighting to keep herself from bursting into laughter. "What's more, I _did_ live among them for twenty years."

"Of course you did," Stoick said hastily, as if to disagree would insult her further. "All the same, the _cheek_ of her to insinuate, to imply, to..." His anger trickled away as he got tangled up in his words. Astrid and Valka exchanged a look; this was something that happened to Hiccup, too. 

"She doesn't insinuate anything," Astrid said. "She just says it."

"She does," Valka said. "I take no offense."

"Mad," Gobber was muttering into the depths of his drinking horn. "Mad. All of you. Stark and raving."

"That's as may be," Valka said to him, refilling his horn as she did. 

He snorted and took a long pull. "Mad."

Clearing his throat, Stoick turned to Astrid. "So what do we do?"

Her eyes widened. "You're asking me?"

Valka, standing behind Stoick, rested her hands on his shoulders. "Hiccup left you in charge."

Astrid flushed, but her gaze remained steady and she nodded. "All right. You're asking me. Right. And I'm saying...I'm saying..."

"You're all mad," Gobber said.

"No, not that," Astrid continued. "I'm saying we wait and see. That might sound cowardly, but I really think that it's the best option."

"Not cowardly," Stoick said after bit. "Good thinking, lady."

"Keep our eye on her but don't overreact," Astrid added. "I think that's reasonable."

"It is," Valka said. She smiled at Astrid, wondering if they were close enough yet to feel proud of her. "Quite reasonable."

Fidgeting, bouncing a little in her seat, Astrid bobbed her head and rubbed her palms together. "Good, good. Man, no wonder Hiccup's so twitchy! This is not easy."

"Nah, Hiccup, now...he was always twitchy," Gobber said fondly and Stoick nodded in agreement. "Leadership might have calmed him down a tick, actually."

"Think you're right about that," Stoick said. "Remember when he lost that runic-guessing bee?"

They laughed, slapping their knees, trading reminiscences and imitations of Hiccup, while Valka and Astrid looked on. Once the two of them got going like this, it often proved to be a long night.

*

Stoick was down on the large beach with Hiccup's friends, sawing the Bewilderbeast's broken tusk into slightly more manageable pieces. The work was hard, the kids were especially irritating, but the task needed to be finished before winter truly settled in.

They were so busy — Stoick doing the physical labor, the young people kibitzing as they "supervised" — that no one noticed the witch arrive. Later, Fishlegs swore that she did not approach, but simply appeared outside their circle.

"The great leviathan," Oddrún said as she ran her hand down the inner curve of the broken tusk. "It fell here. Agonized."

"What gave it away?" Snotlout asked, but Stoick shushed him. He was old enough to be wary around witches.

"It did, lady," he said. "Many months past, now."

"Yet you leave its relics lying around like so much rubbish."

"Oh, do you have storage space for it?" Ruffnut put in. "By all means, help yourself! We'd love to get our beach back!"

"All of you, get lost," Stoick roared. 

"Don't need to tell us twice," Tuffnut yelled over his shoulder; he was already sprinting up the trail, his sister at his heels shoving him faster. Snotlout brought up the rear. "See ya!"

Stoick was left with the witch. She paced slowly down the length of the tusk. As she walked, she murmured to herself. Her distaff turned slowly in her grip; its blue ribbons lifted in the breeze off the water. Her hair moved, too, streaming out from her hood like the sea-grasses that reach and grab at ships in the fog.

She stopped just across from Stoick. The tusk rose between them, to her waist, to his thighs. Up close, it was pockmarked and split, not whole, and the weather-beaten color of distant sands and salt-crusted rocks.

"You seek the Bewilderbeast," she told him.

Stoick blanched. "I? No, lady."

Smiling, showing neat white teeth in her moon-pale face, she shook her head. "Worry not. He is close."

He did not worry, not in the least. Why would he worry? "He was defeated. He is gone from these waters."

"Very close."

"Ma'am," he started to say, then stopped. "The beast is _gone_ , vanquished by the Night Fury."

She looked out to the sea. Her hair blew across her face. "As were you."

Eerie, strange woman! Stoick hitched up his breeches and squared his shoulders. "I was not defeated. That was..." He had to think of the right word. "A misunderstanding. An accident."

"Ah," she replied, and turned back to face him. "Perhaps that is what the Bewilderbeast believes as well."

Stoick could only shake his head. Before he returned to his bone saw, however, Oddrún lay her hand over his. Her touch was colder than the sea.

"And where is the black monster?" she asked.

Stoick blinked several times before he understood that she was referring to Toothless. "He is not a monster."

"He flies and breathes death," she said simply. "Darker than night. Huginn and Muninn wheel around the death-fields of our world."

"He's not a raven," Stoick objected. "He's —" _Worse_ , he almost said, but that wasn't what he meant. Toothless was more than a beast, not quite a human, both terrifying and lovable. Toothless was, Stoick understood without being able to put that understanding into words, _unique_. "What do you want with Toothless?"

"I want nothing," she replied. Her face was unreadable, just smooth luminous skin and glinting eyes. She gave nothing away; he wouldn't have known what to look for. "I see, and report what I see. Desire is nothing I know or care for."

With a great deal of effort, Stoick took back his hand and lifted his bone saw. "If you'll excuse me," he said stiffly, keeping his eyes on the tusk. "This thing won't deconstruct itself."

"Have you tried asking it?"

He had had more than his fill of strange, eerie witch-nonsense. Stoick merely grunted and got back to work.

*

The moon was nearly full, the sea a glimmering carpet of otherworldly tracks and eerie lights. In the stables, the dragons slumbered, breath flecked with sparks, wings drawn over their sides.

Stoick dreamed of the Bewilderbeast, the one deployed by Bludvist, the massive weapon, cuffed and enslaved. It rose from the sea and sang the saddest song, a lament and confession both.

He stood on the beach, in the unnamed space where sand was soaked and water crawled. The moon, the dragon, his face: three silver forms clicked and merged.

He woke, thrashing, to Valka holding him. She murmured in his ear, a crooned series of sounds that dwelled below words and sense. They crept into him, through his thoughts and down into his mind, spread through his soul, and he calmed.

In the morning, she told him about the song of the Bewilderbeast. The one she'd lived with, the sweet-tempered monarch, had sung as easily as others breathed. Bubbles and frost flowed from its mouth and danced on the ripples of sound.

"And you sang it to me," Stoick said. He felt, somehow, ashamed — naked, exposed, _revealed_.

"I did," she replied. Her cheeks were afire and she dragged her gaze to meet his with great effort. "Stoick, I grieve for him every day. But you —"

"I'm not him," he said gruffly. "Nothing of him."

"No," she agreed. "I never thought you were."

They stared at each other, recognition and estrangement alike duelling and dawning. They loved each other; their bond was unbreakable. Just who was on either end of the bond, however, was shifting and glimmering, changing again.

*

Stoick had a sheep's carcass slung over one shoulder when he found the witch. She was not difficult to track, of course; she patrolled the beaches every day, the livelong day, as if waiting for a ship to put in.

She sat on a long piece of driftwood, bare feet buried in the cold sand, distaff rolling as she spun long, glittering strands of fiber. They looked for all the world like 

"What do you know of the Bewilderbeast?"

Oddrún flicked a braid over her shoulder. "Much. Not all, sadly. And you?"

"I'm going to feed it," he told her, indicating the bloody thing in his arm. "Care to come with?"

"You can find him," she replied and rose.

It was not a question. He knew that without consciously grasping its truth.

He took off his boots before they reached the water, then strode into the shallows. The cold shocked him, but he did not stumble. He held the carcass over his head and waited. The surf beat and swirled around his calves; the witch sang a little in the same non-verbal way that Valka had soothed him.

When the Bewilderbeast rose, impossibly, into view, its cry was silent and eyes sorrowful. It listed to one side, unbalanced by the loss of its tusk.

Beside Stoick, Oddrún dissolved into an eddying foam, silver and blue like her hair and staff. The foam swirled, spread, then raced toward the dragon.

It ate, and was restored, and Stoick nodded in satisfaction.

*

High above them, in her small yard at the very top of the island, the elder paused in her morning wrestling match with her dragons.

"What we've lost," Gothi told her Terrors, "finds us again."

The Terrors chittered agreeably, but they might well have been asking for more smoked herring treats.

From the south, Toothless swept into view, a coal-dark rune against the pearlescent clouds that hung for a moment, still and striking, before dropping for home.


End file.
